KOSHER DRUG DEALERS

Hasidic Jews Used as Drug Mules
Canadian leader of alleged Ecstasy ring told couriers they were carrying diamonds
Jonathon Gatehouse

Shimon Levita
A Canadian man who is alleged to have masterminded an international Ecstasy smuggling ring that used Hasidic Jews as drug mules has lost his bid to avoid extradition from his Netherlands home to the United States.
Sean Erez -- accused of heading a criminal organization that supplied more than one million pills for the club scene in New York City and Miami -- will be handed over to U.S. authorities within the next two weeks. The 30-year-old, who has been indicted on nine counts of trafficking and money laundering in New York state, has been in an Amsterdam jail since his arrest in July, 1999.

Mr. Erez, who holds both Canadian and Israeli citizenship and is believed to be from the Toronto area, faces more than 20 years in jail if convicted. He and his girlfriend, Diana Reicherter, 22, had opposed extradition on the basis of an alleged psychiatric condition, an argument rejected by Dutch authorities on Wednesday.

"At the time we took the case down it was the largest [Ecstasy] ring we had ever seen," Linda Lacewell, the U.S. federal prosector in charge of the case, said yesterday. "Within a seven- or eight-month period they were responsible for about a million pills and a lot of money."
Five other members of the drug network have already faced charges in the case. All have pleaded guilty.

According to court documents, the drug ring took form in late 1998, under the direction of Mr. Erez, also known as "Schmule" and his girlfriend, who had moved to Amsterdam from New York City. The Canadian is alleged to have recruited dozens of Orthodox Jewish couriers with the help of Shimon "Shimi" Levita, 19, the son of a prominent member of Brooklyn's Hasidic community.
The mules, mostly young men, were told they were carrying diamonds and promised a free trip to Europe and US$1,500 cash per voyage. The smugglers believed their courier's religious dress --long black coats, hats, and side curls -- would not arouse the suspicion of customs and drug enforcement officers.

At its height, the ring allegedly ran three return trips a week, with each mule carrying between 35,000 and 50,000 hits of Ecstasy at a time. Many of the small pills were decorated with the Superman logo, others bore the yin-yang symbol, the mark of the Eurodollar, or pictures of elephants.

Couriers would land in New York or Miami and once through customs, would hand over their packages to local drug wholesalers. Giacomo "Goombah" Pampinella has pleaded guilty to distributing hundreds of thousands of the pills to dealers at popular clubs in New York, as have Richard "Tiny" Harris and Yves Cesar Vandenbranden II, better known as "GQ," who were the ring's connections in trendy Miami Beach.

With huge profits flowing in -- an Ecstasy pill can be bought for $2 a pill from manufacturers in the Netherlands and sold for $25 to $30 in the U.S. -- some trusted couriers were also given suitcases stuffed with cash, allegedly up to $500,000 at a time, to be delivered to Amsterdam.
When Mr. Erez was arrested in 1999, authorities in Luxembourg froze his numbered bank account, which contained almost $500,000.

International authorities eventually cottoned on to the scheme after arresting several Orthodox Jewish couriers at airports in Europe and North America in early 1999.
On April 14, 1999, police at Orly airport in Paris stopped a young Hasidic couple from New Jersey carrying 80,000 Ecstasy tablets. Two days later, Revenue Canada Customs agents at Dorval airport in Montreal nabbed a young Orthodox woman from upstate New York who had 45,000 Superman pills hidden in her suitcase.

In all, seven couriers with the ring were arrested over a period of a few weeks. All have since pleaded guilty to lesser drug charges.
When Levita was sentenced for his part in the scheme last March, a New York judge took the city's Hasidic community to task.

"Where was the community when all of this was going on?" demanded U.S. District Judge Leo Glasser. "Who was keeping tabs on the 18-year-olds who were flying drugs back [from Europe] and taking money there?"

Levita was given a relatively lenient term of 2 1/2 years in federal custody, including a six-month stint in a young offenders' boot camp. He had faced up to 15 1/2 years in prison.
"I was raised in a real Orthodox religious home," Levita told the court, pleading for understanding. "I didn't know what drugs were."

Following Levita's arrest, Jessica Cusumano, his girlfriend, told a New Jersey newspaper that the easy money and luxurious lifestyle of the drug dealer had lured her and her friends into the scheme. She described how she and her boyfriend moved to Amsterdam in April, 1999, taking along only a duffle bag crammed with US$100,000 in cash.

Mr. Erez, she said, was their mentor, a hard-living tough guy.
"He was like a Gambino," she told The Record. "He thought he was a Donnie Brasco type, like a Mafia type, like that. He was nice, but he was sometimes mean."
Yesterday, Nicholas Gravante, Mr. Erez' s New York lawyer, said his client will plead not guilty when he is arraigned on the charges. And he questioned the fairness of the process that will see his client face trial in a country that punishes drug offenders so harshly.

"What he is alleged to have done is something that he would get a slap on the wrist for in Holland," said Mr. Gravante. "Instead he has been extradited to a country he has no connection with.
"This is an offence that he would get a year for in Holland. Ecstasy is practically legal there," he added. "Here we're talking about serious charges that carry potential jail terms of 20-plus years."
Mr. Gravante said his client has had contact with Canadian officials during his time in jail in the Netherlands, but he would not say if Mr. Erez has asked Ottawa to intervene on his behalf.